World No. 8 South Korea names ‘full-time’ manager for WBSC Premier12 battle

SEOUL – The manager to prepare and lead the Men’s South Korean National Team at the first-ever WBSC Premier12 of Baseball this November has been named, the Korean Baseball Organization (KBO) League announced Monday.

KBO, South Korea’s top professional sports league and WBSC Member, appointed the chief of its technical committee, Kim In-sik, to guide No. 8 South Korea against fellow Group B opponents — No. 1 Japan, No. 2 United States, No. 6 Dominican Republic, No. 10 Venezuela and No. 12 Mexico.

Kim will look to position South Korea among the four nations with the best win-loss records in Group B, in order to advance to the quarterfinal-knockout stage, where the four nations advancing from Group A and the four nations advancing from Group B will collide. Group A is composed of No. 3 Cuba, No. 4 Chinese Taipei, No. 5 Netherlands, No. 7 Canada, No. 9 Puerto Rico and No. 11 Italy.

KBO explored naming a coach from its 10-team league, but ultimately decided to hand over the National Team to Kim, who led South Korea deep into the 2006 and 2009 editions of the World Baseball Classic.

“We felt a [currently] active KBO [club] manager wouldn’t have enough time to get ready and lead the National Team,” KBO said in a statement. “A full-time boss is better suited to help the team achieve the best possible results.”

Announcing KBO’s full support for the National Team last month, Kim said:

“We will look to finish this global baseball battle with the Premier12 top prize in our hands. The National Baseball Team is a source of pride for our entire country — we take it very seriously and need to honour this responsibility. KBO takes great pride in having players from our league representing the Korean National Team.”

South Korea will take on Japan to open the WBSC Premier12 on 8 November at the 40,000-seat Sapporo Dome. It will be the first time in six years that the star-filled/professional National Teams of Samurai Japan and South Korea face off against each other.

The full tournament schedule, bracket and full list of venues for the WBSC Premier12, scheduled for 8-21 November in Japan and Taiwan, were revealed last week by the world governing body.

The biggest international tournament on the calendar, the Top 12 countries from the WBSC Baseball World Rankings will unite for the first time ever at Premier12, in a global battle that will challenge each nation to prove and defend its world rankings, with a $USD multi-million purse and large-scale bonus of ranking points at stake.

With Kim’s appointment, the three qualified nations from Asia have their managers set for Premier12: No. 1 Japan (Hiroki Kokubo), No. 4 Chinese Taipei (Kuo Tai-yuan) and South Korea.